The ice before the thaw

Plenty of action up the Ben today. Various teams on Tower Ridge, Zero and Observatory Buttress amongst others

Looking up Observatory Gully

The Ben between thaws

Here is what the Ben looked like today. Plenty of teams in action, mainly on the easier snow routes

NW side of Tower Ridge

30th Jan

Not such great views as yesterday. Strengthening winds started to transport any soft snow around the mountain, depositing unstable, but not extensive areas of windslab. Fresh cornices were limited in size, but would readily collapse if tapped with a ski pole.

29th Jan

It started off a cloudy day, but cleared up through the afternoon. Here are some pictures taken as it cleared.

The crags of Coire an Lochan, Aonach Mor

The Ben and Carn Mor Dearg

Aonach Beag just about peeking out from the cloud.

The shadowy internal world of the snowpack

Sometimes a cornice will creep or slump rather than completely collapse. This usually happens when the temperature is close to freezing and the snow quite ductile. At lower temperatures any failure tends to be more brittle, which is more likely to lead to complete collapse. This creeping and deformation sometimes opens up a large cracks a little way back from the edge. In Coire Dubh on Aonach Mor, about a 30 metre long section of cornice slumped earlier this week, producing a crack wide enough to climb into at various points. A few days of consolidation, it felt safe enough to crawl into this for a wee peak at the strange, blue, internal world on the Scottish snowpack

Sat 22dn Jan

Some pictures from Aonach Mor today.

Looking south to Aonach Beag.

A boarder enjoying Summit Gully

A busy day at the top of Easy Gully

Another wet day on Ben Nevis

Sub-optimal weather on the Ben

The weather conditions for most of the day. Not the finest of mountain days.

The weather cleared up just as we were heading down. Some fresh debris was noted below Number 5 gully, and below Number 2 gully. There seems to be a fair bit of snow and ice surviving the thaw at higher levels. The snowpack is soaking very wet and so climbing conditions in the higher gullies could become very good if/when it freezes.

Up the Ben

North East buttress round to Coire na Ciste.

Coire na Ciste looking quite rimed up.

Carn Dearg buttress. Although the CIC hut cascade is complete, it is reported to be hollow and wet at the base.

It was cloudy on Aoanch Mor today, so no good pictures I am afraid. It was also cold, with summit temperatures of -7 degrees C and a bitter wind. Here are some photos from Ben Nevis yesterday (7th Jan).

Back to Beag

A quick stomp round the top of the snow pit, and the top 10cm to 15cm of the snowpack sheared off quite easily.

Looking South to Aonach Beag.

Some pretty substantial cornices exist. Although you can't see it in this picture, some large cracks exist about 5 feet back from the left hand end of this cornice.

It was back to Aonach Beag for me today. Most of the way over Aoanch Mor with in thick cloud, but it cleared up for a brief period when I got to when I got to the col. The snow down to the col had a slight wind crust on it, making for some quite tricky skiing. At higher level there has been a fair bit of fresh snow over the past few days. It was quite mild when this started to fall, and then turned colder, so the deeper layers of this fresh snow are quite well bonded. However, the top layers are not so well bonded (see top photo).

Aonach Beag

Climber belaying on Coire an Lochan. Conditions were reported to be quite verglassed.

Looking East over the Grey Coires

The Ben

Aonach Beag.

Despite a slightly threatening sky it was quite a pleasant day on the hill. I took a wander over to Aonach Beag. The snow is generally pretty firm with crampons being necessary on all but the gentlest of slopes. Although isolated there are a few wee pockets of slab about.

Xmas icing

Some of the widespread water ice up the Ben. Reports suggest is on the brittle side

Looking over towards the Curtain. Not much ice there!

General view over towards the Trident Buttresses

Cold pictures of the crags

A bit if action on Aonach Mor today with several routes being climbed.

Pretty chilly though so I wouldn't like to hang around on belay ledges too long!

Ben Nevis

The North Face of Ben.

Orion Face, Tower Ridge and the CIC hut cascade

I walked up o the CIC hut today, and then cut up the West face of Carn Mor Dearg. This gave great views back to the Ben. Climbing wise the CIC hut icefall looks climbable, but quite thin and steep. The higher buttresses look quite nicely rimed up. The main gullies and ice route however look quite thin, which is not really surprising given the lack of freeze thaw cycles at that level this season.

There is some patches of windslab about. Here a well aimed kick released this block which is about 25cm deep and over a metre long.

Variability

It was cold day on Aonach Mor with summit temperatures of around -9C and a bitter Easterly wind. The older snowpack is very hard and icy (and probably providing some good climbing conditions), with a patchy cover of soft windslab. I took a wee ski tour from the top of the ski area to the actual summit of Aonach Mor and back along the top of the West face.

Little fresh snow here, you can see my poles are stuck into the very hard underlying neve.

However, just a few meters away there is about 35cm of fresh slab (poles inserted to the first joint)

The crags of Coire an Lochan today. Although climbing conditions generally looked pretty good, the East wind and low temperatures would have made it quite a chilly experience.

Brief Mild Spell.

Looking over from the top of the West face of Aonach Mor to Carn Mor Dearg and the Ben during a brief clearing of the cloud.

After a slight thaw on Thursday and Friday it was was cooling down today with a frustratingly breakable crust forming on the surface of the snowpack above about 900 metres. The snowpack is generally stable with little avalanche hazard. With the temperature forecast to continue dropping, and settled weather conditions expected through the early part of the coming week, the climbing conditions one the high and mid level routes are expected to improve. Daily avalanche forecasts will be issued from Thursday the 16th onwards.

Early season action on the Ben

Winter has arrived. Quite a few teams up the Ben today. Good snow cover above 750m, although pretty hard going till you get above 1000m.

Looking up No5 Gully and the Curtain to give you an idea of the ice build up. This has been slowly thawing for a few days now.

Looking up towards Coire na Ciste and Tower Ridge

Looking up towards No3 Gully Buttress

The end.

With almost unbroken sunshine and some very warm temperatures (it was +7 degrees on the summit at midday, probably higher during the afternoon), it really felt like winter was over today. It feels like it has been a particularly long winter this year.

There is still a good covering of snow at higher levels, with plenty of large cornices waiting to fall down, and on Ben Nevis especially the continuing risk of ice fall.

The top of Easy Gully, notice all the marks in the snow from collapsing sections of cornice.

Looking into Coire an Lochan, large cornices remain.

The South Side of Coire an Lochan, the slopes below the crags have been marked by sections of collapsing cornice and ice.

This little fellow was spotted out yesterday, maybe time for an alternative SAIS (Scottish Amphibian Information Service) report. Significant frogs are likely on steep slopes and boggy ground on all aspects above 500 metres.

See you next winter riiibeeeett.

Easter Snow in Lochaber

Apparently it is more likely to snow on Easter Sunday that on Christmas day. This winter we have had plenty of fresh snow on the hills on these two days. About 20cm fell with very light winds last night. This meant that there was some great skiing to be had in Lochaber today. Although there is some good ice on Ben Nevis at the moment, I suspect the approaches and top outs of many routes would be quite hard work, not to mention hazardous, with all this fresh snow around.

Looking over to Aonach Beag.

Dot and Suzy contemplating the descent.

One of my lovely assistants enjoying the descent. Avalanche forecasting, it's a hard and dangerous job, but someone has to do it.

Sunny Day on the Ben

Looking up Observatory Gully

Orion Face with many teams on Orion Direct, Point Five and Hadrians.

10 points to the person than managed to drop their rucksack off NE Buttress! Must have spoilt their day

Coire na Ciste